


The Gods, However, Remain Silent

by Sphinxriddle



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Alex is actually good and loves his family too much, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Danica is having a long moment, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Light Angst, Not Beta Read, Post-The Vault (Final Fantasy XIV), The Moment Alex Decides Ok Maybe It Is Time to Say Fuck You To His Dad Pt 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-13 04:40:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29520984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sphinxriddle/pseuds/Sphinxriddle
Summary: Alexois was there when they removed the body of a Good Man from the Vault. And he was there when his Mirror stormed off into the Foundation with hopes of drowning her sorrows in mulled wine. He isn't sure where he ended up.
Kudos: 2





	The Gods, However, Remain Silent

**Author's Note:**

> I started this a year ago, or almost a year ago but It's done now and its a fun little first person jaunt through Alexois' mind and his opinions on Gods, and how he thinks of things since his fathers everything. This is about where Warrior of Light him unofficially joins the scions.

The Gods are silent today. They are silent as I watch them carry the body of a Good Man from the Vault. He’s still bleeding, just the smallest bit, as they try to cover his face. His arm falls limp off the edge of the stretcher they carry his shell in, and leave tiny droplets of blood upon the cold stone. They will wash that at dawn. None shall remember it having ever been there. Save perhaps me, and even it will fade from my mind given time. Hopefully. 

They are silent as I watch my Mirror walk from the Vaults Holy Halls, well worn spear in a white knuckled grip. Eyes glazed over and red with anguish. Hands coated in the same red essence of life that was slowly turning brown upon the cobbles. His perhaps? Was she so truly of House Dzemael that such an evil would befit her. 

No. For she is a Good Woman. Maybe not in the eyes of the Fury, whose cruel gaze was blind to so much, if she watched at all, but she was a Good Woman all the same. Better than I. Both of them far far better than I. She turns towards the Foundation, the body that was once a Good Man turns towards further in the Pillars, and her myriad of traveling companions go various ways that I quickly lose count of. And I too soon move from the spectacle that’s gathered a crowd of gossiping men and women towards what at first I think is home. 

My library would have been a keen comfort. None enter there unless they wish something of me, and its desk is situated just so that I can prepare for any request with an impassive face that displays nothing save that I am listening. Nothing that can be used against me. Nothing I can be blamed for. Nothing that my Father's constant hypocritical sermons upon the various tenants of the Halonic Orthodox Church can reach. But yet I do not find myself at its familiar door, with its faint light and warm carpets. I find myself at the far far too loud, far far too bright door of the Forgotten Knight.

It seems more silent than I remember it from my few times here with cousin Grinnaux.

I know that won’t last long. 

The doors are still the old splintered well worn wood that they were last time. The stairs still creaky with the years of usage they had seen. The murmur, muffled by the buffering winds of outside, grew louder as I descended them - almost of my legs' own volition - and took a seat at the bar. 

Danica was here. Had I followed her? I don’t know, even now. She sat far across the bar from me with a bottle of _something_ left by her hand and eyes tracing the woodgrain upon the counter. She looked... hollow. The Bravado and brightness normally found in the mirror of my eyes was gone, and their luster dulled. If anything, she’d become more of a mirror of myself and...

I sat next to her before I realized I had moved. She looked up at me, and where I expected to be admonished, to be yelled at and pushed away, instead I was greeted by a silence and a weak smile that brought a frown to my own face.

When we had first met in Coerthas, during that debacle with the imposter inquisitor, I treated her and her ilk with the disdain expected of me. I was cruel, and cold, the pointed politeness that tells people they are not wanted there. Yet despite that, still she and her compatriots fought forward. Cleared Francel, Found the truth. Brought the Heretic Inquisitor to justice.

“He brought so many Heretics to their rightful ends.” The Faithful had said at first. “He is a good and righteous man, blessed by Halone.” They praised him even as he sent innocent people, hells even innocent children to their death at witchdrop. To prove their innocence in death. 

How quickly they turned on each other, on their neighbor, at the simplest sign of “heresy” and then as soon as his farce was revealed, prayed for those lost like they hadn’t been cheering for their deaths. 

“Justice” was brought, yes, but Justice wouldn’t bring those sacrificed back. Won't mend their bones as they lay abandoned upon Witchdrops floor. 

And sitting there, in the Forgotten Knight, I was uniquely reminded of that. What would they say about him, Lord Haurchefant, in the days to come? How would he be remembered, in a land that hated him simply for the circumstances of his birth. Bastard. Greystone. 

Danica turned from me to her drink, and I felt a sadness well in me I thought I had long since learned to quell. The kind that Father would inspire when I was young. The Kind that on occasion, I could feel trying to tear to the surface of my heart when Father spoke, and then Trell spoke. But no, I would never allow it would I. One of House Dzemael does not concern themselves with the simple matter of Love. 

“Did you love him?” I ask before I even realize that I have spoken, and when she looked at me next at least her eyes were not empty. There was sadness, and rage, and something I think akin to shame. 

“Of course I do, He is my best friend.” She responded, words a hoarse whisper that betrayed that she must have been crying earlier. Present tense still soaking her words, as if he was merely sleeping. I barely knew this man, but I felt my heart break for her all the same. She really was my mirror after all. Where I barely reacted, I was a stone faced mirror of indifference. She felt everything with the intensity of a thousand calamities. It was a wonder, to me at least, that she was still standing.

“Then what do you plan to do about it?” I asked, leaning forward upon the uncomfortable bar stool that I never understood how Cousin Grinnaux could stand. Had he been here lately? He’d been so... different in his brutality of late. Focused. Unlike the wild storm that was himself. I shook my head, attempting to focus my thoughts but no doubt looking like a cruel judge upon her, or the Good Man’s character.

“The one thing I’m good at.” She hissed, a hollow laugh following, echoing through the Knight like she was screaming into the void. Lunging forward on her own stool, near falling off of it onto the ground she grabbed my collar and I full expected for her to slam my head upon the table. I’d have deserved it with my inconsiderate questions, as I always do, but she didn’t. Merely dropping her hands and head to the table and letting out a strangled cry. 

“Rhaglr please, wake me up from this nightmare.”

A plea to an unfamiliar god, but one I was sure would remain as unanswered as all of mine were. Bile rose at the back of my throat and rage sang in my gut. How dare they? How dare they remain silent over this cruelty spilled from by others in their name. In the name of a stupid holy war. In spite of this suffering, or perhaps because of it. Their silence rang loud like screams of the damned.

But I decided then, as my mirror, my cousin, the family my father would have me forget, sat in the Forgotten Knight staining the wood with her tears, that I would not do the same. I would remain silent no longer as these fools I called country men slew the few damn Good Men we have, and break the hearts of those who try to save us. I would be the prayers that were not answered for me, or for her, or for that Good Man whose body I watched be carried away to where most would never recall his name. 

I gingerly put my hand upon her shoulder, fearful of what angry reaction I might provoke from my cruel question. But my worry was for naught, save that she continued to mourn. Perhaps I would have preferred she got angry at me. I at least know how to handle that.

“When you’ve decided, let me know.” I started, causing her to slowly turn her head and raise a brow at me, confusion joining the tears in her eyes. “Because I’m going with you, I may not be an Azure Dragoon or an acclaimed scion and God Killer but I fought in this war all the same. I know how to handle myself and my magic is at your disposal.”

For once, I found I didn’t mind the idea of my skills being at someone else’s command. My Mirror, she is a Good Woman, she will... she won’t ask what they asked of me. 

“I’ve decided I need a hug.” Her words, a whisper, snapped me from my thoughts of my blood stained, terribly burnt hands to confirm I was right. A small smile cracked upon my face without a seconds restraint, no worry about who of my fathers men might see me. 

I held my Dear Cousin close and let her cry. 


End file.
